Noticing my Browser, Cooking for the Family, and Our Super-Powers of Choice

I’ve been using Firefox as my browser o’ choice for several years, and never really thought about it. Which is a good thing: if you’re thinking about your browser, something ain’t right. But over the past couple of weeks it’s been causing me problems. Did something change? Some “enhancement” that rendered the application noticeable?

Whenever I’d open a window through Firefox, my computer would start revving up and acting sluggish. I usually have three or four windows open at the same time, and my machine was sometimes acting like we were back in the dial-up days. And I can’t have that. I checked the task manager, to be sure, and it was definitely Firefox sucking up all the resources. What the hell, man?

So, I’ve started using Chrome and everything’s lightning fast and quiet. It was annoying at first, because the new browser didn’t know all my passwords, and various internet proclivities. It had an import feature, which didn’t seem to work very well; as far as I could tell, it was a button attached to nothing. But Chrome seems to know me now, and I’m back in the game.

One small paranoid concern: my whole life seems to be facilitated by the Google Corporation at this point. They’re in charge of my email, internet activity, cell phone, etc. Before long I’ll have Google tires on my car, and be shoveling in forkfuls of Google food.

I cooked dinner for the family on Friday, and it was a 100% success. The plan was to do it every Saturday, but our schedule got screwed up last week, and I moved it to Friday.

While I was in West Virginia a couple of weeks ago (it seems like a couple of months ago already), my mother cooked a roast for dinner one night, and it was incredibly good. I asked her to share the mysterious magic with me — how in the pearl-handled hell is something like that even possible? She explained it, and it seemed improbably easy.

So, last week I went to Sam’s Club, chose a $19 rump roast and put it in the Crockpot with a shitload of onions, a little water, and salt and pepper. Nothing else. This happened around 10 a.m. At 1 p.m. I added a metric ton of raw carrots, and an hour later… an endloader scoop of raw potatoes. At that point I turned down the heat from HIGH to LOW, and let it go for another five hours.

And I’m not kidding, it was perfection. The meat was tender as a mofo, tasted great, and was a huge hit. I also steamed some brussels sprouts, and heated up some dinner rolls. It was fantastic. And so easy! I’d assumed there was some kind of sorcery involved, but there was nothing to it.

My mother cooks roasts another way, too. But I went with the simpler of the two methods, and it paid dividends. I might attempt the more complicated way, somewhere down the road.

Next on my cooking agenda: extreme nachos. I’m going to create a ridiculous, over-the-top nacho bar in our kitchen, with an outlandish number of toppings. This new Dad’s Cooking! project is going to cost me a fortune, but every edition will be memorable — for one reason or another. That is my goal. There will be no half-stepping, when dad’s cooking.

Now for our Question… I was listening to the Adam Carolla Show a few days ago, and they were talking about a recently released survey, which asked people the super-power they’d most like to possess. Women, it said, choose “invisibility” most often, and men “the power of flight.”

I would go with invisibility, without giving it a second thought. I’m with the ladies on this one. There are so many possibilities… Oh yeah, that would be kick-ass.

Which one would you choose? You can pick from the established super-powers, or make up some new ones. It’s all good. Use the comments link below. Tell us which one you’d go with, and why. The why is important.

Definitely flight. I’d be able to fly to work and back, and not be stuck in traffic.

If I were a 14-year-old boy, then sure, invisibility — to see naked females in the girls locker room. But I’ve seen my fair share of naked females at this point in life, and so would go with the “avoiding traffic” superpower.

Nice job on the dinners! When I was growing up, my dad was in charge of making pancakes for breakfast. That was his big specialty and they were always great unless he did something weird like add eggnog around Christmastime.

On the rare occasions that he had to cook us dinner, it was always exactly the same menu: hamburger steaks, mashed potatoes (from scratch) and canned green beans.

That is such a great dinner and takes a little more effort than one would think…my mom tought me to make some packet mushroom gravy w a little can of mushrooms to slop on the hamburger steaks….the first meal my mom made for me after my c section birth! Shit u not!

Congrats on switching to Chrome. Here is the best part: If you log into google from any computer with chrome and use that browser ALL of your bookmarks and settings load right up! OMG it is amazing!

I learned how to make a roast with the potatoes celery and carrots but not in a crockpot. I use those cooking bags and seal it up and throw it in the oven. Good stuff and yes SO EASY!
I am proud of you Jeff. You may not be able to back a camper up, but you can cook a meal!

Is immense wealth a super-power? I would like that please, with a side of invisibility so all the weirdos wouldn’t know where I was to hit me up for money.
Time travel would be nice. I’d like to go back to high school and do it all again knowing what I know now. Then take a shot at a do-over over my 20’s as well.

Having trouble with Firefox, as well. Better now than a few weeks ago, but still a drag. Chrome was shititng the bed, too, so I’m back with Firefox as my default. I’m still using my lame-o IBM Thinkpad and that may be part of the problem.
Since I have dreams where I’m flying a lot, I guess I would pick that as my super power. Although… there’s been many a-time I’ve reallllly needed super strength to move furniture or carry in my groceries. That would be sweet!

Yeah, Chrome is great – been using it for years, but some Java stuff acts wonky on it at it makes my hard drive spin like it is gonna fly right out of my laptop. They say the turn off the anti-phishing feature and you will be good. The bookmarks think is awesome, but had anyone tried Google Remote Desktop? That one blows my mind. My wife will be in the living room watching TV on the home-theater pc and I will start moving the mouse and stuff and I can hear her freak out from in the bedroom. Great fun.

The power of self healing. Getting older and the pains and injuries would be nice to be rid of.

Firefox: Turn off automatic updates once you have a nicely working setup. They probably did a major update again and it’ll be slow going. Same deal for chrome, personally, I’m not a big fan of it, I find it a bit clunkier to use.

I’m going with reading minds. I would love to know what people are really thinking as compared to what comes out of their mouths.

Congrats on the crock pot roast. I don’t make that often because I don’t care for what I call “funky”meat. But if I do make it for the boyfriend, I only use onions and potatoes too. Cooked carrots are gross as hell. Blecch.

Did no one here grow up reading comic books? Mind reading is NOT an available super power. You can run fast, flail through the air, hide with stealth, lift heavy objects, or swim quickly and talk with marine mammals, but you can’t read minds.

The closest you can come is to gain the ability to accurately guess the age and weight of strangers, and there are limited vocational opportunities associated with that power.

You could also have the ability to shrink to tiny size, or turn to rubbery plastic and ooze through keyholes and under doors. I never figured out what Green Lantern’s ring did for him.

Or you could flip to the ads in the back and purchase the X-Ray Specs. These glasses with cardboard lenses (with spirals printed on them!) allowed you to hold up your hand and marvel at the bones within, or to see through not more than one layer of women’s clothing.

The notion of guessing weight reminds me of the coin-operated scales I used to see in the NY subway. The idea was that after inserting a coin, it would weigh you and dispense a slip of paper with a fortune cookie style “fortune”. The inscription on the scale was supposed to be “WEIGH” YOUR FATE – but on all the ones I saw, someone had scraped off the E from the word FATE.
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Every once in a while I swear off posting tongue-in-cheek comments here. Read the first sentence of my comment. My source authority is a 12 cent (as of 1962) pulp.

But while we’re at it, mind reading is AT BEST a trivial subset of psychic abilities. Nostradamus predicted the Kennedy assassination, down to the detail of the single bullet theory, 450 years in advance, but never claimed that he could read minds.

But don’t let some old man (me, not Nostra) limit your horizon. Go for it…

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
I believe I can soar
I see me running through that open door
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly

Super power? The ability to make people shit their pants with a thought. So many people would need this. If I couldn’t have that, then making people piss their pants would be a nice second. There is a manager I would like to try that on right now…

I downloaded Firefox just last week and the default install came with a TON of virus detection apps that I had to remove. Shame on Firefox as one of the virus detection apps acted like a virus itself… it re-installed itself a couple of time.

Open up your control panel, head to the uninstall software menu, and start a’scrubbin’.

My super power would be theme music where ever I went. Imagine the office filling with Wagner right before you walked in, or some Al Green in the bedroom. Yeah, baby.

If time travel is a super power, that’s what I’d like to have the ability to do. I’d love to go back and talk to my great and great-great grandparents from the 1800’s. Plus, I’d like to be able to move forward a few days and then make a shitload of heavy bets on football games.

Check out comedian John Hodgman’s take on “flight or invisibility”. As the blurb reads:
“John Hodgman conducts an informal survey in which he asks the age-old question: Which is better: The power of flight or the power of invisibility? He finds that how you answer tells a lot about what kind of person you are. And also, no matter which power people choose, they never use it to fight crime. (14 minutes)”
Act Onehttp://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/178/superpowers

Jeff, I can not believe that no one told u to throw a packet of Liptons onion soup mix into the pot!! Where is this country headed? Onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup r necessities in the Crockpot world. Is this like a west coast thing?